Erin & Mike...Engaged! (Part 2)

Ok, so here's the image-heavy post about one of my favorite sessions, hands down. :) These are the beach ones, the part of the session that I absolutely adored! And for anyone that thinks going to a beach would be flat and boring... no way, josé ! There are always a few basic things to photograph wherever you go, and just being on the beach is awesome. But I have to confess here that I have yet another obsession when I shoot and that is creating layers in my pictures (another lesson learned from Carla Ten Eyck!).

I look for anything to shoot on or with, of course - like the playground, on the lifeguard chair, in front of the grass... and we do that, but I also look for these things as objects to shoot through. If you get behind these things and put people in front of them - bam! - you create a whole new way of looking at the scene by pulling another layer into your pictures, way more interesting when you are creating a whole collection... with the things that you can shoot through... fences, grass, stairs - you can take that beach and multiply your options tenfold! :)

Of course, emotion was the star with these two... may times all I had to do was walk around them and snap away, watching one of the cutest couples just enjoy each other.

Enjoy Part 2 of the incredibly gorgeous and in-love Erin and Mike. ♥

Erin & Mike... Engaged! (Part 1)

I have this little, ripped-up note - a printed out love letter - that I keep in my jewelry box, safely tucked away under my bed. Every year or so, I remember to take it out, carefully unfold it and read it, remembering the butterflies I used to get every time my husband (then boyfriend) came near me. It was the shortest, sweetest note anyone has ever given me, and I like to remind myself of how he can make me feel on the days when routine life kind of swallows that feeling up and spits it out. :) It makes me warm and fuzzy just reading it, gives me butterflies again, and I am so glad I have that piece of our history. Every time I read it, it's like falling in love with him all over again. 

When Erin got her pictures after waiting so patiently for them to be done, she used those exact words to describe what she feels when she looks at her collection. And that, my friends, has to be the biggest compliment I have ever gotten, knowing what that feels like, I am elated that she experienced that reaction and loves them. It is why I do what I do, right there. ♥

I have to say that this may go down in the books as my favorite session, ever. Two gorgeous people, so obviously in love, extremely comfortable in being affectionate with one another, expressive hands, lots of kisses and snuggling - and some amazing locations and light to add some icing on the cake. It was a-m-a-z-i-n-g. I was like a kid in a candy store and could not stop shooting. :) We started in downtown Orchard Park, on a hot and humid summer night, a Friday night, and the restaurants were just starting to get busy. At the beginning, everyone is nervous and a little camera shy - we're not models, and it takes some time to get used to being the center of attention, your every move documented! These guys were amazing. Being right in front of patio restaurant, we had many spectators, and they were so adorable. They just kind of, melted into each other and I was immediately taken by how comfortable they were with each other - you could tell they were a little shy and awkward about being watched, but they drew strength from one another and soon they were in their own little world. We eventually walked away from the crowds and found our own little spots here and there, warming up for the next part of our adventure. :)

**Just one little note here... I have to say that Erin is a mega-trooper. We were in a little back alley, I was shooting through a set of stairs at them and through the viewfinder, all of a sudden I could tell something was wrong. There were a few hornets back there and one must have flown up Erin's dress and stung her. She shares my fear of bees and I have to say, if a hornet ever flew up my dress - there would be a lot less modesty, a lot more noise and tears and dress flipping than there was. She held it all in, getting the bee out, squashing the tears back and taking it like a trooper. I am sure that it hurt like a mother. I was in awe from that point on, knowing I'd probably need some time to recover, maybe plan another day to finish up. Nope. She has some serious moxie, that girl. :)

Anyway, after finishing up in OP, we hopped in the car and drove over to Woodlawn Beach. I hadn't been there in many years and was pleasantly surprised to see how much they have done to the place to spruce it up! It was the perfect night for a beach session - warm, breezy and golden - and I was full of ideas on how to exploit every single inch of that sandy studio. I sometimes lie in bed at night, my brain locked on poses and how to get them right. I had many, many ideas and some of them, I admit, were super lame! Sometimes the pose is weird and uncomfortable, but translates very well to film. Some... well, some just stay awkward. But despite my asking them to turn here, kiss here, lay there, climb there, they were willing to do anything. They just had a flow about them - many times in the session, I would get ready to ask them to move into another pose and they would already be doing it, naturally - so awesome! And in any session, there's kind of a magic point when you can let go and just capture, let things happen, stop posing for a little while. Enough time into the session to have gotten used to me, but not enough time to have tuckered out yet. When this happens, I call myself a vulture and just circle and snap. I let you be you, let you melt into the moment and then just move around you and capture that real emotion. Sometimes it only happens here and there - with these guys, it was like, the whole session. :)

Sometimes I joke with couples that they should be thankful for sunset. Because, if the sun never set, I would never stop shooting... and I forget how much tougher it is to be in front of the camera. :) I was actually exhausted by the end of this session, so I can imagine that these guys slept well that night, lol. I took so many pictures that I filled my card and had to run back to the parking lot to grab my other one, never thinking I would take that many. I ran. In flip-flops. And I am so not in shape. I felt ridiculous. :) But, I was panicked about losing the light, since once the sun gets down to a certain spot in the sky, it literally drops like a stone in a matter of minutes. After I got back from running the long boardwalk, I ended up in the water, wanting to get shots of them from that angle, and of course, a rogue wave soaked my jean capris to the thigh. Stupidly, shortly after that, I fell to the ground to capture another angle in the sand... not thinking about how my wet jeans were going to emerge caked in sand. You know what wet jeans are like.. and they got even heavier with the weight of the sand. Oh, yeah. It sounds like a disaster, and sure, I was slightly embarrassed about my appearance, but I was grinning and whooping like an idiot and loving every minute. (Though the moment I got home and changed into dry clothes was pretty awesome too. :) lol) I cannot have loved these guys more for being so open and cute, sweet and adventurous and loving - they made my job extremely easy.

There were so many favorites from this session that I absolutely have to break it up into 2 posts - so much eye candy! I was squealing behind my camera pretty much non-stop, loving what was there in front of me to capture. :) So, enjoy the beauty and love that is Erin and Mike. ♥ Part 1 of 2.... Today is word heavy, tomorrow will be image heavy. All the beach pics will appear then! :)

Blank Page

I've been staring at this blank page all day... first with annoyance at myself that I couldn't think of anything to write. Then, it turned into a sort of mild dread... that the day was going to get away from me quickly. Now, it's actually a panic - that time is almost out and I am in danger of skipping a day of this challenge.

After 3 weeks of posting, every single day... I think I have officially run out of things to say. :) And I'm actually surprised it took me this long. lol

I know I have said in the past that weekends are hard for me to write a post, and that is a lesson I have learned, but the more specific lesson is that I need to be more prepared - if I want to write something more substantial, I have to start way earlier. :) I have a few more thoughts on passion vs hobby that I'd like to touch on, and a few more sessions I want to share, but it will take me more than just a few minutes at the computer. So, today was going to be another filler post, destined to sink to the bottom of the pile. One I'd write, just to write. :) But then, staring at the title of "Blank Page", at the top of a blank page - it gave me an idea for a post, one about a metaphorical Blank Page.

After we lost our first dog, Ruger, at 9 years old to a slow-growing and undetectable-until-the-last-minute cancer (Hemangiosarcoma), I struggled for months, lost in grief, wanting him back but knowing it was never going to happen. The kids were 18 months old and were in the throes of an intense emotional expression phase. They needed all of me, they were going through an incredibly demanding period, and some days I would just break down at a moment's notice, start sobbing in the middle of the living room on my knees while they were playing around me and they would all look at me, like - what the heck is going on with you? But, I couldn't stop! I would see the spot on the carpet he would lay most of the day, and I would lose it. I would walk by his empty food bowl, and I would lose it. You get the idea. I was emotionally fragile, and the thoughts that helped me most were the ones that promoted the idea that his life had an impact on me and others. I think this is Grief 101 - the comforting thought of keeping his spirit alive somehow was what kept me going for the few weeks afterwards.

I first thought about writing a book to get the message out about Hemangiosarcoma - since its symptoms mimic so many normal aging problems, it is almost always caught late, and almost always a death sentence. We had 4 days. Those few people that catch it early enough to do aggressive and expensive treatment catch it by complete accident. So, I thought if I could help with awareness and in turn help to save other dogs, Ruger's life will have had such a huge outreach!

I have also mentioned that I considered many careers with animals in the past on the search for a lifelong match. These ideas intensified after losing Ruger. I thought about helping out at animal shelters, starting my own wildlife sanctuary, taking over an existing wildlife sanctuary in the area, dogwalker, dog kennel, vet tech, zookeeper... anything that would get me working with animals, anything that would make a positive impact. After I while, I had to concede that none of those options are high-paying - high-reward, but not high paying. :) I gave up after a while, knowing that I would never be able to give up my day job to work with animals because we just would not be able to afford that luxury.

Soon after abandoning those ideas, the idea of researching and writing a book seemed daunting as well, if not wholly impossible with my current demands as a mommy. I wanted to get the word out, shout it out about this horrible disease that was being caused in part, by the regular, dry dog food most dogs eat - but I felt so minuscule, such a tiny voice that still knew so little about the cancer and the cause, that I pushed it aside for the time being. I searched for another idea to latch onto to fill that void, something that would help other dogs and their owners in Ruger's name.

I also have to mention that after my kids were born, I started taking pictures of them non-stop. I had my little point and shoot and I think they heard the little click-tweak sound of the shutter more than they heard my own voice. :) I learned to love it even more than I did before kids, and that is a story many mom-tographers turned professional photogs can replicate. Passion was stirred in giving me an exciting and truly meaningful subject to photograph.

I have touched before on the fact that I struggled and searched for a career to call my own, an actual "what I want to be when I grow up" dream career, not just I "I fell into this job and now I'm stuck" career. The metaphorical Blank Page I speak of now is in the Book of My Life. Every page something about me that will be my eventual legacy. Everyone has one, and I had just finally written on the Mommy page about a year and a half before, the Wife page 8 years before that, the many things about me transcribed on multiple pages to leave behind - the story of my life. But I had yet to fill in the "Career" page, or the more wordy "What I Was Meant To Do On This Earth" page. I had many "jobs" pages, but no career one written yet, and I hoped that empty page would have something written in it by the time that I died.

Looking back, I must have put all of these observations together subconsciously because one fall morning, I opened my eyes after a restful night of sleep (it seems a lot of my life epiphanies occur in bed... hmm... lol) - I remember seeing the dresser next to my bed with such clarity - and I just knew it. I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. As if someone, overnight, had written two words onto that Blank Page for me - Dog Photographer. It was instantly accepted, something that would allow me to spend time with dogs just like Ruger, and dog parents that loved their pets as much as we did. "Working" with people and dogs in this way sounded insanely perfect. :) The bonus is that it was an option that would let me work with dogs in a healthy time of their lives, not a point of crisis. And that sounded amazingly easy, a no-brainer. I could give a gift to people that cherished their dogs, and I would be spending time with my favorite animals on the planet. Sometimes, I really think He knows what He's doing. :)

I know they say hindsight is 20/20, but I almost did a facepalm when I had the realization - a "duh!" moment if there ever was one. Why did it take so long to put 2 and 2 together?!

And that's how my Blank Page was filled, how the idea for my new path was born. He filled in my page overnight, and I was set right that very morning.

One of the first doggies I ever photographed - sweet Casey. :)

Christmas is Still Here!

Today is a Saturday, so I just know I will have a hard time posting today! It's usually our day to go to a family obligation or to tackle some huge project at our house, but in either situation, I leave very little time for myself to write a post. :)

If you've been reading my past posts, you know that Christmas stays a long time in our house. We like to savor the nostalgia, the magic and the ambiance of lights stuffed in every nook and cranny of our old house. It just keeps us warmer and fuzzier through the worst of the cold and long and dreary winter! As we near the end of January, we start to feel like we are an anomaly and start being embarrassed of it by the end of the month. So.. we finally turn off our outside lights and just enjoy our inside lights until the tree dies.

That's really our moment - what we wait for... the tree kicking the bucket. And we have had some hardy trees in the past! Our record is April 13 - back in 2007... 1 week before the triplets were born, we finally said goodbye to Christmas and welcomed in the rest of the year, which was eat, breathe and sleep triplet. :)

This year, we got a smaller than normal tree for a few reasons, and it's so small we almost forget it is there. It's tucked in the corner of our living room, twinkling merrily... and sprouting new growth. Umm... yeah. We've had a few trees that have done this, and the first year it happened, it blew. our. minds. How the heck can a "dead" tree do this? It must really like it here! So, this year marks the 3rd time we have had this happen, and it makes me happy. It snowed this morning, so pretty outside, a full and fluffy snow that we longed for at Christmastime. This kids were coloring around the table, and I realized that they were all humming Christmas songs... we're still grazing from our hung stockings... and I might just persuade the mister to finally have a fire in the fireplace tonight!

Christmas is still here... and we're loving it. :)

They almost look like they are running for cover from the aliens swooping overhead... :) lol 

Grandma Jane's... I adore this deer. 

the new stuff, bustin' out... 

My Granny's ornament, another adore. :) 

all of the bright green you see is new growth! We should name him... 

this snow would have been nice a month ago, right?